Sydney Festival is Getting Ready for Summer

Sydney is gearing up for its annual summer event which has taken place every January since 1977, and 2015’s offering is set to be a corker.

The Sydney Festival promises to transform the city into a haven of the arts with a spectacular offering of dance, theatre, film, visual arts and music.

In January, those attending can expect 179 events, of which 85 are free, while the others are ticketed. There will be a total of 495 performances to choose from across the 25 venues that are both indoor and outdoor.

Making The Sydney Festival even more exciting is that of the 974 artists performing, there will be 18 world premieres, 11 Australian premieres as well as 22 Australian exclusives that are not to be missed.

One of the world’s most famous circus performer, James Thierree, will be headlining with his fourth visit to the festival, with his show Tabac Rouge. It has been described as ‘an opium hallucination on a breathtaking scale’ in which Thierree plays a ruler who is held captive in a hall of mirrors.

The Griffin Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia will be offering the world premiere of Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of the much loved children’s book, Masquerade. Suitable for those aged nine and above, it tells the tale of Jack Hare who is in a race against time in which he must deliver a message of love from the moon to the sun.

Music lovers can expect an absoulte treat at the 2015 Sydney Festival as Brazil’s Seu Jorge will be offering his signature mix of transformative pop as well as the swinging songs that bring Rio’s colourful way of life to Australia.

On January 23rd and 24th, there will be a special screening of The Artist Live in Concert, which will see the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and composer-pianist Ludovic Bource bring the award winning film to life.

Metro Hotels are a Sydney Festival Accommodation Partner, and are offering great value Sydney Festival Accommodation Hot Deals

Cirque Du Soleil Totem | Australian Tour

Cirque du Soleil returns to Australia with a spectacular show presented under the much-loved blue and yellow Big Top.

TOTEM traces the awe-inspiring journey of the human species from its original amphibian state to its ultimate desire to fly.

The cast features 45 performing artists from 16 countries specialising in many breathtaking acrobatic acts. TOTEM marks Cirque du Soleil’s second collaboration with acclaimed theatre and film director Robert Lepage following KÁ at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Somewhere between science and legend, TOTEM explores the ties that bind mankind to other species, his dreams and his infinite potential.

SHOW DATES:

Sydney, NSW	Opens on October 28, 2014
Melbourne, VI	Opens on January 21, 2015
Brisbane, QL	Opens on April 10, 2015
Adelaide, SA	Opens on June 11, 2015
Perth, WA	Opens on July 31, 2015

Get Tickets Now!

Metro Hotels have ideal nearby Show Accommodation  in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth

Sydney Morning Herald Review of Totem | Cirque Du Soleil

Every night during Cirque du Soleil's performance of Totem, Pascal Sioui, the head of automation, straps a chunky black and yellow box to his right hip. In its centre is a big red button surrounded by three words: "Stop Stop Stop"

Sioui, in charge of "everything that moves", has not had to push the button many times. In his 15 years with the world's biggest and best-known circus company, only two shows have been cancelled.

"I would say I have looked after about 4000 performances in 95 cities," he says, tapping his iPad screen to make the set's 4500-kilogram mirrored hydraulic bridge rise like a scorpion's tail.  "We stopped the show in Washington because the wind was picking up and it was too dangerous to use the tent. Safety is No. 1." 

Totem's close-knit troupe of 120 cast and crew  from 14 countries features people who perform and create astounding, gravity-defying acts of visual and physical wizardry. It also includes coaches, creative artists, physiotherapists, cooks and technicians.

But when you have presented a show 1500 times in 25 cities during four years of touring, with three more to come, another priority creeps in: how to keep everyone, including accompanying spouses and children, happy and sane on such an epic theatrical roadtrip.

The Rolling Stones | Live in Sydney

The Rolling Stones today confirmed the rescheduled dates and venues for the postponed Australian and New Zealand leg of their ’14 On Fire’ Tour.

Ticket holders who are able to attend the rescheduled date need take no action, their existing ticket will remain valid and their location within the venue will remain unchanged.

Fans unable to attend the new shows are asked to secure a refund from their original point of purchase prior to 5pm (local time to the venue) on Monday 28 April, 2014. Refunds can be secured through:

Sydney | Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849

Lead-up to the Tour Down Under:

Production manager Dale Skjerseth - who has been involved with the band since 1994 - says it takes a lot of work to get everything perfect. 

"We’ll be up to around 200 (people) working today, tomorrow, up to the prep for the show and then of course the building will expand. Security ushers, and all the rest of the staff will come in," Dale said on Wednesday afternoon.

"It’s a well oiled machine but we all have to get the joints moving."

Dale says the crew won’t know the specifics of the set list until moments before the show starts.

"They’ve been rehearsing so many songs, we really don’t know what it’s going to be… Of course there will be the favourites and the things added in and stuff they haven’t done,"

"They look back at what they did before years ago when they played here. They think about it and it’s just gotten better every time they’ve gone out."

Promoter Tony Cochrane also confirmed that Jimmy Barnes will be healthy enough to support the Stones after the Cold Chisel singer underwent back surgery last month.

UFC Fight Night SAT 8TH November | Sydney, Australia

The fans and the fighters demanded it, and on November 8 in Sydney, Australia.

The UFC FIGHT PASS main event will be a five-round clash of middleweight contenders, as Luke Rockhold meets heated rival Michael Bisping.

The number five ranked Rockhold, a former Strikeforce champion, is coming off back-to-back finishes of Costas Philippou and Tim Boetsch, and he is promising another quick end when he faces Manchester, England's Bisping, a perennial contender who got back in the win column with an impressive August stoppage of Cung Le in Macao.

EVENT DETAILS: SAT 8 NOV 2014 11:30AM

Jake Matthews:

Jake Matthews has only been in the UFC octagon for 13 minutes and 16 seconds but he already feels he belongs.

“It won’t be long before I’m top 10. I can just feel it,” Matthews said as he prepared for his lightweight showdown against Brazil’s Vagner Rocha at UFC Fight Night in Sydney on November 7.

“I feel I belong at the UFC level and beyond. What I learnt in the Ultimate Fighter house ... I’ve increased my skill level and I know what to do.

“When you get to this level and everyone’s a black belt and everyone’s a good wrestler and a good striker, you have to be ready.

“I know all the UFC fighters in the lightweight division and I think I’m one of the most well rounded fighters.”

Epping’s Matthews, dubbed “The Celtic Kid”, understands he faces a supreme test against “Ceara”.

Rocha submitted Cody McKenzie in Round 2 of UFC Fight Night in New Orleans in 2011, but had defeats either side of that bout against Jonathan Brookins and the highly ranked Donald Cerrone.

“He’s fought in the UFC before, so that’s why it’s a step up,” Matthews said.

“He’s had three fights — won one and lost a couple — so he has experience but I’m super confident. I see it being a first-round finish with this guy. I’m a lot bigger, I’m a lot stronger and he’s coming off an injury and he hasn’t fought in over a year, so he’ll have a bit of cage rust.

Sydney Festival 2015 Line-up Announced

The Sydney Festival has launched its 2015 program — the third under Belgian born director Lieven Bertels — and it’s certainly big with 179 events delivering 490 performances in the central Sydney area and Parramatta covering circus, theatre, dance music, film and visual arts from January 8-26.

About half of these performances are free which means its $18 million budget has to go a long way.

“We only get 35% from public sources and the rest comes from box office and sponsorhsip,” says Bertels who has been critical of how far  the budget has to stretch to stage its free concerts in The Domain.

Bertels says he has found an “elegant solution” to the problem courtesy of new sponsors and has added an extra free concert in The Domain to increase it to four events.

The issue of arts sponsorship in arts management has been a hot button issue this year after the Sydney Biennale and Transfield controversy and Bertels says it’s one that everyone need be aware since the Biennale dumped its sponsor after the demands of participating artists.

“It’s a healthy debate to have. It’s one of those issues that we have to increasingly have to deal with as we look at sponsorship and philanthropy more and more when public funding is static.”

Bertels immediate challenge now, as it has always been for every Sydney Festival director, is to deliver a broad festival that appeal to locals, visitors, tourists and families on school holidays.

“It needs to be a lot of things to a lot of people,” he says, adding that Sydneysiders are always “very honest” in their feedback. “It’s great that Sydneysiders are very eloquent and they are also a very curious audience.”

Bertels’ festival approach is to introduce new names and “make introductions” as well as commission new Australian work. “We’ve commissioned 30 new Australian works over my three years”, he says.

His philosophy also includes getting out of the artists’ way once the commission is secured.

“We (festival directors) are not artists and you have to step aside.”

You can see the full program here but highlights include:

Actress Charlotte Rampling and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton will combine Sylvia Plath’s poetry and composer Benjamin Britten’s music.

Circus performer James Thierrée  is back in Sydney with Tabac Rouge with his largest work so far combining his skills as an acrobat, musician, dancer, actor, and choreographer.

Australian theatre maker Kate Mulvany is premiering Masquerade by Kit Williams for chidren and adults.

Kiss & Cry  – a dance work with a difference as two sets of hands perform a romance with cinematic projections and tiny sets.

Indian director Roysten Abel’s  The Kitchen, combines music and food with dishes made on stage from within the musicians’ instruments.

Nigerian synth pioneer William Onyeabor’s  Atomic Bomb! The Music of William Onyeaborwith a line-up  that includes Gotye, Sinkane, Money Mark (Beastie Boys), Luke Jenner(The Rapture), Alexis Taylor(Hot Chip), Pat Mahoney (LCD Soundsystem) and Mahotella Queens.

Brazil’s Seu Jorge whose pop covers and original songs combine samba, reggae, Brazilian pop and electronics.

A screening of The Artist with its score performed live by the Sydney Symphony Orchestraand conducted by Ernst Van Tiel with composer Ludovic Bource on piano.

Hyde Park’s Festival Village will see 40 contemporary music performances and not one, but two spiegeltents.

The Domain with four concerts which includes shows by Seu Jorge, William Barton on didgeridoo with the SSO, an operatic concert from Opera Australia and  Beat the Drum: Celebrating 40 years of Triple J featuring Hilltop Hoods, The Presets, The Cat Empire, The Preatures, You Am I and more.

Sydney Festival 2015 Event Map

With the weather heating up and the line up just announced, it’s time to jump on board the Sydney Festival train!

From the city centre to the Greater West, we’ve planned an action packed eighteen days, with something for everyone this summer.

We’ve come up with a new way to explore your Festival – decide on your own route: interchange, take an express or multiple trips on your Multipack.

View all events - http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2015/all

India’s Narendra Modi to Star at Sydney’s Allphones Arena

Since becoming prime minister, Narendra Modi has performed in New York’s storied Madison Square Garden and played drums on stage in Japan.

His next big-ticket venue: Sydney’s Allphones Arena this November.

Mr. Modi will address what is expected to be a sell-out crowd at the 21,000-seat venue in Australia’s financial and commercial capital on Nov. 17 during his four-day trip to the country for the G20 summit in Brisbane.

Organizers say it will eclipse the prime minister’s biggest gig so far, when he spoke to a crowd of 18,000 people, mostly Indian-Americans, at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 28.

“This will be bigger and better,” said Balesh Singh Dhankhar one of the organizers of the reception for Mr. Modi. The Allphones Arena, built for the 2000 Olympics, “has more grandeur” than Madison Square Garden, he added.

The stadium in Manhattan is famous for hosting some of the biggest names in entertainment, like the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and “The Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

The Allphone Arena also hosts musical acts and boxing matches. In the same month as Mr. Modi’s visit, The Rolling Stones and Katy Perry will play the arena and an Ultimate Fighting Championship event will take place there.

Australia is home to around 350,000 people who were born in India, according to the latest census data from 2011. 

That was a 90% increase on the number recorded in the census in 2006, but a tenth the size of the Indian-American community in the United States.

After Mr. Modi’s speech in New York, people in Australia began asking when he would come here, said Mr. Dhankhar, a spokesman for the Indian Australian Community Foundation that is helping put on the event that was conceived only three weeks ago.

Some 14,000 people have registered in the first two and a half days of registration, according to the organizers. It will be broadcast live on Indian television channels.

“We invited Mr. Modi and said the Indian diaspora in Australia is very eager to see him,” Mr. Dhankhar added.

Tickets for the Sydney event are free and the show will start around 5.30p.m., but further details of the spectacle are under wraps right now, Mr. Dhankhar said. 

“There are a number of cultural and exciting events before the speech that would be a surprise for the audience in India and Australia. These will be wider and more surprising that at Madison Square Gardens.”